Perhaps the easiest way to see whether a number that is not very big is prime or not is by trial.
Suppose that n is a positive integer. n is not prime if and only if there are two integers s, t greater than one such that n = st. Without loss of generality, suppose that s \leq t. Hence s^2 \leq n, which is just s \leq \sqrt{n}. We have the following useful proposition:
Suppose that n is a positive integer. n is not prime if and only if there exists an integer not greater than \sqrt{n} which divides n.
Suppose that p is a prime number greater than three. It is not hard to verify that six cannot divide p or p - 2 or p - 3 or p - 4. Hence all prime numbers greater than three must be of the form 6k + 1 or 6k - 1, in which k is an integer.
Now let’s see whether N = 9\,973 is prime or not.
Clearly neither two or three divides N. \sqrt{N} is greater than 99 and less than 100. Hence it suffices to check whether there is a prime number which is less than 100 and divides N. There are exactly twenty-five prime numbers which is greater than one and less than a hundred: